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It all started in England
Molly Gallery began in Liverpool, England for it was there that it's keeper, Jere Hinton, met and married Molly Mulhern. Five years later they settled in Strongsville, Ohio at 19483 Lunn Road.
Molly
died without warning in 1998. Shortly afterwards, she inspired Jere to
turn their home into an Art Center. So the Gallery was
born.
Friends of Gallery (FOG)
Looking for wisdom, Jere asked Molly:
"How should I find artists?" "Pick ones who's works are
beautiful, ones you like," she began. He interrupted, "That's
too subjective." Molly continued: "Ask them two questions: why
do you make art? and, why do you want it in our gallery? Their answers
will tell you who our Friends are."
All was not roses. In 2003 the City of Strongsville concocted a legal sham to shut Molly Galley down; and it took Plain Dealer reporter Mark Rollenhagen, Channel 19 Action News, Cleveland Magazine and the Eighth District Court of Appeals to restore its rights. This inspired the Gallery to move on.
But from it's inception, Molly was Jere's real inspiration:
| .....And I was barefoot Faced the tides of some void dreaming Slipping up like velum from her velvet song: Keep writing plays. |
Winter Solstice was celebrated in 2005 with the art show, FOG. Springtides bore another show, Kim & FOG, headlining the unique talent of artist Kim Wolf, and the Gallery's 10th play, Appeals Revisited:
MOLLY: (To Crossroads): Admit that you may
be wrong.
CROSSROADS: (Chorus): NEVER!
JERE: You've never
even visited us.
CROSSROADS: We don't have to; we've been told what goes on there.
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In
June the opening reception of the art show, Women Et Al,
embraced the premiere of our play, What Women Really Want, a
version of Chaucer's "Wife of Bath" at the Gallery:
WIFE (To Knight): Choose now
what you want, My Love.
KNIGHT: (Scratching his head) Beats me. You decide what
would be the most fun and honorable for us both.
WIFE : You're giving me the power to choose?
KNIGHT: You're the boss.
WIFE: Then come in here and see what you've got.
What Women Really Want was such a smashing success that Molly Gallery offered to stage it at a September 2006 art show, Day at the Chalet run by Arts in Strongsville (AIS), the City's censor tribunal. However, at their July inquisition of the Gallery, our offer was spurned; and, instead, the play was put on in September at The Greater Cleveland Art and Gallery Festival at the Galleria at Erieview, in downtown Cleveland. AIS's arrogance inspired the October art show, Marco & FOG, featuring Marco Vaccher, the "famous unknown artist"; and the premiere at the Gallery of Thank Ya, Cain, a history of Crossroad's censorship.
MOLLY (To
Crossroads): Bloody Vultures! Think that you may be wrong?
CROSSROADS (Chorus): NEVER!....
MOLLY: (To Jere) Move on. Thank Ya, Cain is our best play so far. The next ones will be even better...
JERE: Ya can't out piss a skunk.
MOLLY (Laughing): Sleep sweet, My Love.
| Forget
thyself and all the world, put out each garish light: The stars are shining overhead - Sleep sweet! Good night! Goodnight! |
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| - (Ellen M. Huntington Gates) |
A Holiday Art Show was Molly Gallery's last one in 2006. Dan Taddeo's new books, Matters That Matter were nigh sold out; and Alice Hill Seifullah added music to our souls.
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Winter
Solstice & Springtides
Earth wobbles to a low ebb of light around Christmas hereabouts. Strongsville
Community Theatre (SCT), a star of hope, announced its
upcoming production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest;
and The Sun Star, our Cultural Desert's messenger, promoted
a new "history" of Strongsville. Molly Gallery was inspired:
(January 16, 2007 Letter to The Sun Star)
To the Editor:
No doubt Strongsville Community Theatre’s upcoming production of The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde will be entertaining, but as Paul Harvey used to say, “Now for the rest of the story”. In 1895 when the play was tickling the ribs of Wilde’s culture he was imprisoned for being “The center of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men”. So I began writing Molly Gallery’s play, Symposium.
The real “kicker” though was your December 21, 2006 article, “Author Showcases City’s Past”. According to the article, the author Bruce Courey traces our history and development in his book, Strongsville. For example he says Mayor Ehrnfelt began his political career when he won a school board seat in 1973 against an incumbent member who was leading a fight to ban books and dismiss teachers. Ironically just before the book came out Molly Gallery had staged What Women Really Want, a version of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath” and Thank Ya, Cain, a history of censorship in Crossroads. Was I discouraged when its censor tribunal, Arts in Strongsville, proclaimed that Chaucer’s double-barreled love tale would corrupt family values? A bit, but then came your article and Courey’s hope that his book would be a catalyst for young and old to discover and rediscover the past. That was what I needed to get on with Symposium.
Thanks,
Jere Hinton, Molly Gallery
Work on Symposium, from Plato to Oscar Wilde and our cultural deserts nowadays, continued.
Night seemed darkest ere the dawn. In March, The Sun Star issued a generic "review" of SCT's brilliant production of Wilde's genius; AIS proclaimed its ongoing mission of censorship; and Molly Gallery answered with its first 2007 art show, March Madness, orchestrated by Alice Hill Seifullah in concert with our 13th play, Wreck of the Hesperus, a dramatization of Longfellow's epic and Dante's dream, at the Gallery.
LONGFELLOW:
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus in the midnight and the snow.
SKIPPER: Christ save us all from a death like this, on the reef of Norman's Woe!
CAST (Chorus, with music crescendo): Ave
Maria, gratia plena*.
MOLLY: Only Love is real!**
* Oscar Wilde: De ProFundis,
Penguin Books (1954) p.217.
** Weiss, op.cit. p. 4 of 13.
An encore performance of Wreck of the Hesperus, following What Woman Really Want, banned in Strongsville a year before, were staged at Jack Hamilton's June Art Review (JAR), uncorking greater Cleveland's art and talent at the Galleria at Erieview.
On September 14-16 Molly Gallery showcased its best artists, and latest plays at the Greater Cleveland Art and Gallery Festival at the Galleria. With the Festival's "Best of Show" (Scott Baggett) and award winners (Jerry Schmidt & Son), and the audience acclaim, the art show Fog Anew, and 14th play, Shooting of Dan McGrew, were uncorked back at the Gallery in October.
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| FOG ANEW | ||
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Twenty six top notch Friends Of Gallery artists:
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SHOOTING
OF DAN McGREW
Dramatizion
of Robert Service's love tale:
Cast of Characters: Janette Britt (Molly), Tim Green
(Stranger), Dan Grossman (Bartender), Jere Hinton (Service), Rosie Jaegar
(Lady That's Known as Lou), Don Cox (Dangerous Dan McGrew), Jerry Schmidt
(Rag-Time Kid), John Fielding (One of the boys), John Von Duhn (Music)
and Audience (Saloon Crowd).
Backstage: Bonnie Forrest, Cleveland Costume & Display (Costumes), Dave Peck (Stage Manager), Karl Schmidt, Web Page Creators (Production), John Von Duhn (Music), Kim Wolf (Production and Special Affects), and Dave Yettke, Big Productions (Filming).
| SERVICE: | The lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark; A woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead was Dangerous Dan McGrew (Audience applause) While the Man From the Creeks lay clutched to the breast of the Lady That's Known as Lou....
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| MOLLY: | (Offstage) ONLY LOVE IS REAL!* * Brian L. Weiss: Same Soul, Many Bodies, Free Press, (2004). |
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Enough is Enough!
We
cannot do great things, |
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| -- Mother Teresa |
Since 2001 Molly Gallery has evolved with great love, and it's zeal to nurture local artists and art lovers has not changed. Financially, 10% of the sales of exhibited works (pictures, photos, sculpture, poetry, books and scripts) and proceeds from the Gallery's 78 free events have been contributed to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. However, after accounting for the victory over Strongsville's 2003-05 legal sham against us, our net loss through 2007was $44,100; and Molly harkened, Enough is Enough!.
Still,
the Gallery's December Art Show, FOG Anew, dovetailed
to our 15th play, Cremation of Sam McGee, gave us new
hope.
FOG ANEW & FREE ART RAFFLE
Of the 26 exhibiting artists, 17 raffled 45 of their works, totaling $3,730 in value, free:
R. Colosimo (Portraits), G. Conrad (Cards), D. Cox (Painting), B. Decker (Poetry), J. Hinton (Scripts), E. Jackson (Hands), R. Jaegar (Picture), R. Jenkins (Photo), C. Pinkney (Picture), L. Sayner (Photo), K. Schmidt (Artwork), V. Swirynsky (Poetry), D. Taddeo (Books), C. Trunko (Sculpture), M. Turzillo (Poetry), M. Vaccher (Sculpture), J. Von Duhn (Painting) and Kim Wolf (Paintings).
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CREMATION OF SAM McGEE
A
10 minute dramatization of Robert Service's spiritual dilemma:
Cast of Characters: Tim
Green (Sam McGee), Jere. Hinton (Cap), S. McBride and K. Wolf (Lead Dogs),
Cy and Audience (Huskies).
Backstage: Jere Hinton (Playwright, Producer,Director), Mozart (Requiem), Dave Peck (Stage Manager), Bill Wachtel (Usher) and Dave Yettke, Big Productions (Filming).
FOG
& Cremation Revisited
An audience of some 50 artists and art lovers echoed Molly's inspiration
that Cremation of Sam McGee was our best play so far.
Unfortunately, it was not captured on a DVD. So it was put on once more
at the Gallery's first 2008 art show and free raffle, produced by FOG.
| Rick
Colosimo - Paintings |
Karl
Schmidt - Premere Graphics |
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Despite the threat of a blizzard (literally), the crowd of theater buffs nigh brought the house down on March 7. The Art Show did not fair as well, although the 21 exhibiting artists raffled 34 of their works, totaling $830 in value, free. Accordingly, Molly Gallery will consider undertaking art shows in the future, only if they are joint ventured with our plays by true FOGs (see Page 1, About Molly Gallery).
Much has been said in this Web site about Jack Hamilton and his heroic success in making the Galleria at Erieview one of the Cleveland area's major art centers. Molly Gallery was honored to have staged two of its 10 minute plays at the Galleria's gala annual June Art Review ("JAR").
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Following the June 6th JAR performance of these two plays, Molly Gallery's 16th play, Tides, was previewed at the Gallery on June 27th, and at the Galleria at Erieview in September based on Dante's Inferno, Canto 1 of his Divine Comedy. "And, just as he who, with exhausted breath, having escaped from sea to shore, turns back to watch the dangerous waters he has quit, so did my spirit, still a fugitive, turn back to look intently at TIDES that never let any man survive."
Beatrice was Dante's lifelong love. It was never requited. She died young without knowing her destiny - - being loved and glorified as no other women since the Virgin Mary had been.
Dante's historic fight for the separation of church and state is still up for grabs, but in his closing years his dream awakened. "From that most holy wave, I now returned to Beatrice....I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars." (Purg, Canto XXXIII)
Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was tickling London's ribs in 1895, at the same time at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced and kept at hard labour for two years for "having been the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men..."
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......................
Molly
Gallery's rendering of Plato's Symposium began two years
ago, after Arcadia Publishing's Pollyanna "history" of Crossroads
was headlined on December 21, 2006 by our Cultural Desert messenger, The
Sun Star. It's March, 2007 backpage, generic "review"
of Strongsville Community Theatre's wondrous production of Oscar Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest, without Act 4, but Arts
in Strongsville's ongoing censorship, inspired the Gallery to end its
17th play with the judicial murder of Socrates. (see
page 3)
Just so, 600 years later there came to us another amazing teacher: Jesus of Nazareth. Like Socrates, he did not write his teachings down, but at least Socrates had Plato.
There has been no shortage of boldness in the history of biblical scholarship since we murdered Jesus on a cross. But for sheer audacity Thomas Jefferson's synoptic bible takes the cake: "There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man...which is distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill". (Jefferson's letter to John Adams, 10/13/1813). Like many thinkers, Jefferson held that the real villain in the Christian story was Paul, who had corrupted the religion OF Jesus into a religion ABOUT Jesus, which thus had, in combination with the other worldly outlook of the Forth Gospel, produced the monstrosities of dogma..." (J. Pelikan: Pg.153 to the Jefferson Bible, Beacon Press (1989).
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Molly Gallery's 18th play was based on Robert W. Funk's seminal work, Jesus as Precursor, Polebridge Press (1994), which begins: |
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Funk who passed on in 2005 is best know as the founder of the JESUS SEMINAR, an independent think tank of scholars that freed biblical scholarship form it's slow demise in ivory towers. He upset many lesser scholars and paranoid clergy. yet will remain. |
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Going Back Aways
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In July, 2007 Molly Gallery offered to stage it's 11th play What Women Really Want at the Day at the Chalet art show run by AIS, Strongsville's censor tribunal. They spurned our offer. So the play with three others including Thank Ya Cain, a history of Crossroad's censorship, were performed at the Galleria in September. Thank Ya Cain begins by stressing that it really happened. Arthur Cain, a born again Zealot, and arrogant lawyer, got elected to Crossroads' School Board in 1970, and all Hell broke loose. Three years later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Board, and Cain was voted out. Yet it took three more years for U.S. Judge Blanche Krupansky to declare that banning books in Crossroads' schools was illegal under The Constitution. The lone and level sands stretch far away." (Ozymandias). Crossroad's
censorship did not vanish. Molly inspired Jere to turn their home
into an Art Center. Here, memories of Cain and AIS's inquisition
fell like gethsemane shadows across the wooded paths of Molly's
garden; and she echoed: "Move on! Those who
think they know, do not know. Those who know they do not know, know."
Just so, our 18th play, Crossing Over, was premiered
last December at the Gallery. (See Molly Gallery Order Form,
Page 14). Crossroads Revisited At the same time Thank Ya Cain was staged at the Galleria, Reporter Mark Puente's article, "Strongsville mayor sent letter about nurse" came out in the Plain Dealer. According to the article, on May 6, 2007 a Southwest General Hospital nurse, Karla Lucas and her husband, Tony, were caring for their niece when the child's mother somehow duped Crossroad's police into returning the child to her, no questions asked. As they did so, Lucas warned them that the girl might be put in a dangerous situation and became agitated. |
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| One of the officers, Tom O'Deens, said in a letter he wrote to Police Chief C.W. Gross that Lucas had "threatened" him. But no charges were filed against her. Chief Gross passed the letter onto Mayor Thomas Perciak who called Lucas' actions offensive and degrading and forwarded it to Hospital President Gary Rowe on June 8. The Hospital fired her a week later. She had worked there for 17 years. Susan Scheutzow, a Hospital attorney, said administrators spoke to O'Deens and gave more credibility to his statement than hers. "Her issue is with the police, not us," Scheutzow said. Kenneth Kraus, Strongsville Law Director, said, the incident could be a potential legal matter and declined to comment. Eric Tayfel, Lucas' attorney, said she never threatened O'Deens and his letter was filled with inaccurate statements...."It's unconscionable that the mayor involved himself in this," Tayfel added. In his September 14, 2007 article Puente suggested that because Mayor Perciak was chairman of the Hospital's fund-raising board his political influence may have led to the firing of Lucas. She and her husband filed a law suit against the Mayor et al on May 2, 2008. But no media coverage seems to have followed; even though seven months after Lucas' filed their suit against Perciak, Sun News Executive Editor, Linda L. Kinsey, gave her readers this promise: "We believe Sun News plays a vital role in informing, educating and even warning people about actions taken by public officials. My first editor told me that newspapers are the watchdogs of City Hall. I believed it then and I still do...count on us to monitor the goings-on at City Hall...." (Sun Star, 1/22/2009). |
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Whatever Happened to Lucas vs Perciak? |
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The
paper shuffle began in May, 2008; which perhaps sparked the Sun
Star to promise to monitor the goings on at City Hall.
A jury trial was scheduled by common pleas judge Michael P. Donnelly,
but cancelled. Nine, Defendant Depositions were filed on June 18,
2009; and Lucas' Notice of Dismissal Without Prejudice was accepted
by the court a month later. The case was refiled on April 19, 2010
including re-initiated last disposition.
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Ralph Lozak: Jesus Laughing, Praise, Screen Prints (1977). |
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Molly
Gallery Order Form |
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| Date | Play (Autographed with Program) | Script | QTY | DVD | QTY | Total $ |
| 05/02 | Sirens | |||||
| 08/02 | Dreams | 5.00 | ||||
| 12/02 | Reality | 5.00 | ||||
| 02/03 | Psyche | 2.50 | ||||
| 04/03 | Adam | 2.50 | ||||
| 06/03 | Er | 2.50 | ||||
| 05/04 | Love | 15.00 | ||||
| 09/04 | One Rose | 10.00 | ||||
| 04/05 | Appeals | 10.00 | ||||
| 02/06 | Appeals Revisited | 10.00 | ||||
| 06/06 | What Women Really Want | 5.00 | ||||
| 10/06 | Thank Ya Cain | 10.00 | ||||
| 03/07 | Wreck of the Hesperus | 5.00 | ||||
| 10/07 | Shooting of Dan McGrew | 5.00 |
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| 03/08 | Creamation of Sam McCree | 5.00 | ||||
| 06/08 | Tides Preview | 10.00 | ||||
| 12/08 | Symposium | |||||
| 12/09 | Crossing Over | 5.00 | ||||
| 5/10 | Heloise & Abelard Preview | 5.00 | ||||
| 06/10 | Heloise & Abelard | 12.50 | ||||
| 09/10 | Crossroads Preview | 10.00 | ||||
| 12/10 | Crossroads | 10.00 | ||||
Total:
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Print
out this Order Form, fill it out completely and send check (made
payable to): Jere Hinton, Molly Gallery, 19483 Lunn Road, Strongsville, OH 44149 |
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